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Eastern Arc Mountains Forests of Tanzania Eastern Arc Mountains World Heritage Nomination Process The Eastern Arc Mountains are known to biologists and conservationists as one of the world’s most important areas for biodiversity. This importance was first recognised by work undertaken in the 1970s (White 1983), and in the pioneering work on the identification of global biodiversity hotspots (Myers, 1990). Based on systematic analyses of available species data, the importance of the Eastern Arc Mountains has been recognised in the following analyses of global biological priority: � Global 200 Ecoregion (WWF: Olson and Dinerstein 1998); � part of a global biodiversity hotspot (Conservation International: Mittermeier et al., 1998; 2004); and � part of an Endemic Bird Area (BirdLife International: ICBP 1992; Stattersfield et al., 1998). However, despite this importance the area is yet to be recognized internationally through its inscription as a natural property on the World Heritage List. This was first noted at the 1997 Eastern Arc Mountains Conference held in Morogoro, Tanzania, organized by the Tanzania Forestry Research Institute (Burgess et al. 1998). A conclusion of that meeting was that the Eastern Arc Mountains would be a suitable candidate for a serial nomination, perhaps similar to the Australian Wet Tropics World Heritage property (Lovett 1998). The lack of a suitable World Heritage Site in the Eastern Arc was also noted in the UNEP-WCMC global review of the biodiversity coverage of World Heritage Sites (Magin and Chape 2004). The approach for developing an Eastern Arc Mountains World Heritage Site needed to address the geographical isolation of the 13 mountain blocks, the fragmentation of the forest within the respective blocks, and identify the most important sites to include within the property. After the Eastern Arc conference of 1997, the Forestry and Beekeeping Division (FBD) and UNDP-GEF developed a conservation project for the Eastern Arc Mountains that included the successful serial nomination of the Eastern Arc Mountains for inscription on the World Heritage List as a primary output. The resulting FBD/UNDP-GEF Project, ‘Conservation and Management of the Eastern Arc Mountain Forests’, was started in 2003 and has run until 2010. The Project provided the funding to facilitate the process of developing the nomination of the Eastern Arc World Heritage property. From 2004 to 2009 the process focused on working within the national and local government systems to explain the World Heritage concept and gain support from the 5 regions and 15 districts that cover the Eastern Arc Mountains, and the support of the Forestry and Beekeeping Division and the Department of Antiquities, both within the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. During 2004-2009 considerable efforts were also made to promote biological study of the Eastern Arc Mountains through funding provided by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (established by a number of donors), UNDP-GEF and others. Support was also provided to compile all available records of species within Eastern Arc Mountain blocks using a Geographic Information System, enabling species’ distributions to be mapped. By the end of 2009 detailed databases had been compiled for birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. In 2009 UNESCO provided a World Heritage preparatory grant for technical assistance in the preparation of the nomination dossier, and for hosting a stakeholders meeting in December 2009 when the final steps of the nomination process were debated and agreed, with particular attention focused on the selection of sites for including in the serial nomination. After the meeting in December 2009 the consultant team, and a group of international scientists, updated the available data on species values for every site in the Eastern Arc (see acknowledgements). This process allowed a full and transparent justification of the Outstanding Universal Values of the entire Eastern Arc, in terms of the mountain blocks within the Eastern Arc and the individual sites (mainly protected areas) within each block. This work resulted in a series of moderately comprehensive databases that cover all the animal and plant values Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism
Eastern Arc Mountains Forests of Tanzania across the Eastern Arc. These data provide the basis for the selection of sites for inclusion in the serial nomination of the Eastern Arc Mountains. In addition to the biological and conservation values of sites (i.e. species richness, endemism and threatened status), the integrity (area and connectivity), protection (legal status) and management (management plan status and provisions) of the sites across the Eastern Arc have been taken into account in the selection of sites. A further criterion is that each site is managed by a competent authority, in this case either the Forestry and Beekeeping Division or Tanzania National Parks. Thus, each site included in this serial nomination is large, rich in endemic species (including species endemic to the mountain block and/or site), designated as a nature reserve or national park (or in the process of being designated a nature reserve) and having a management plan that is up to date or in the process of being updated. As such, the sites selected by the Government of Tanzania for inclusion in this serial nomination for consideration by the World Heritage Committee have Outstanding Universal Values for which there is legal provision for their protection, together with plans and resources for their management. This methodology is described in more detail in Section 2a of the nomination. The results of this site selection procedure were presented to key stakeholders at a meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on the 20 th January 2010. Participants made a number of further interventions and the final set of sites to be included in the nomination was endorsed unanimously. The meeting also provided an opportunity to identify a series of initiatives to prioritise during the coming months following the submission of nomination and in anticipation of its evaluation and, hopefully, the inscription of the site on the World Heritage List. Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism 3
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